This appears to me to be a very smart move by candidate Huckabee. Today the campaign unveiled a “9-Point Strategy for Immigration Enforcement and Border Security.”  

Immigration was the major issue in which Huckabee seemed to be out of step with other cultural conservatives. Of course, it is impossible to say whether this represents a true Damascus Road conversion based-upon having talked with hundreds of ordinary citizens while campaigning; or is just a campaign strategists calculation.

 I would wager a lot that he’s been getting an earful from guys like me wherever he’s been, though.

Here’s NRO’s resident immigration hawk Mark Krikorian on the plan. He seems favorably impressed.

Check out this astonishing post by Mark Krikorian over at NRO:

 Oh, Isn’t Little Hitler Cute   

Palestinians seem to have so internalized Jew-hatred that they’ve taken to naming their sons “Hitler,” as in Hitler Salah, Hitler Abu-Alrab, and Hitler Mahmud Abu-Libda. Now, people name their kids all kinds of things (there was a Soviet Armenian poem in the 60s, I think, about the stupid names peasants were giving their kids, including “Chevrolet”), but naming trends reflect larger social and political trends. For instance, “Mels” was a male given name back in the USSR — comprised of the first letter of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. But by the time I got there, in the 1980s, it had become a joke, with only a few old men left saddled with the moniker.

On the other hand, Venezuelans apparently give their kids odd names too, including 60 adults named Hitler (I wonder how they voted last weekend).

Mark Steyn is apparently as ambivalent as I am about who to go with in the Republican field. He says what I’ve been thinking:

As it is, the present field poses difficulties for almost every faction of the GOP base. Rudy Giuliani was a brilliant can-do executive who transformed the fortunes of what was supposedly one of the most ungovernable cities in the nation but on guns, abortion and almost every other social issue he’s anathema to much of the party. Huckabee is an impeccable social conservative but fiscally speaking favors big-government solutions with big-government price tags. Ron Paul has a long track record of sustained philosophically coherent support for small government but he’s running as a neo-isolationist on war and foreign policy. John McCain believes in assertive American global leadership but he believes just as strongly in constitutional abominations like McCain-Feingold. So if you’re a pro-gun anti-abortion tough-on-crime victory-in-Iraq small-government Republican the 2008 selection is a tough call. Mitt Romney, the candidate whose (current) policies least offend the most people, happens to be a Mormon, which, if the press is to be believed, poses certain obstacles for elements of the Christian right. 

Read the whole thing here.

Stuart: Oooh, the Colonel, with his wee beady eyes and that smug look on his face. “Oooh you’re gonna buy my chicken, oooh…”
Charlie: Dad? How can you hate the Colonel?
Stuart: Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly!

Lost? Then you’ve never seen “So, I Married an Ax Murderer.” A sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=varaAADgC84

And some audio only: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjkFzHQCY04

Some thoughts from Rich Lowry on the Huckabee strategy here. An excerpt:

He has thrived on exactly what was in theory going to boost Fred—superior communications skills that have shined in the debates and in interviews; good gut political instinct; Southern charm and an inherit likeability; a very grounded sense of authenticity. Plus, the grass roots enthusiasm of social conservatives. 

Lowry’s thoughts about Huckabee’s interesting “Fair Tax” proposal here. 

At this moment, Mike Huckabee is generating a lot of buzz. He’s polling high in Iowa (so high, his people are working hard to lower expectations) and getting lots of attention.

 He’s seems to me to be a very good man and a excellent campaigner. So, whenever I start to ponder rooting for him, here’s the question lurking in the back of my thoughts:

Isn’t Mike Huckabee just George W. Bush with the ability to talk? And if so, is that really what I want?

Here are the parallels.

Southern Governor

Strong Evangelical Christian

Strong Social/Cultural Conservative but. . . 

Not a true-believer-conservative on markets, taxes, or limited government.

Doesn’t “get” our deep concerns about illegal immigration (at all) and implies we’re being hard-hearted, selfish and generally unChristian for having them.

Bridge-builder accustomed to using charm and integrity to work with moderate Dems to get things done at the state level (and therefore utterly unprepared for the vicious partisan polarization of Washington.)

That was GWB. How is this not also Governor Huckabee? What am i missing?

A while back I fessed up to suffering from a raging case of Bush Fatigue. I voted for someone else in the Republican primary in 2000. And if the President could run for a third term, I would almost certainly be backing a more conservative primary challenger now.

So again, I’m asking myself. . . Is Brother Huckabee, my fellow believer, also my candidate?

Update: The main headline on Drudge right now–which is about the strong Huckabee numbers–is “Huckaboom.” A word that, when I say it in my head, is reflexively followed by the word, “shucka-lucka-lucka.”

I have a morning routine. After a brief and largely ceremonial grooming ritual, I stagger in to my home office, sit down, and wake up the computer. Gently. Then two steps follow:

1. Check DrudgeReport to see if a nuclear device has been detonated in a major U.S. city overnight. If answer is, “No,” proceed to step 2.

2. Check Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans to see if my name has been added to the list overnight. If answer is, “No,” commence working.

This morning Drudge linked to a story about an archaeological find in Jerusalem.

Pottery shards found around an ancient wall that was discovered a while back suggests it is the construction project described in the book of Nehemiah. Of course, highly educated nincompoops have been suggesting for decades the the account in Nehemiah was fiction. But that has been the pattern with every biblical archaeological find in the last 100 years. First the “higher criticism” geniuses point to the utter lack of archaeological evidence to support a name or place in the Bible. In Phase II, some archaeological evidence appears to validate the Bible’s account but the experts are “dubious.” (That is the phase Nehemiah’s wall just entered.) Finally, incontrovertible proof emerges confirming the Bible’s accuracy and the experts change the subject.

Half of immigrants in Texas are there illegally, study says:

State has one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations.

This explains oh, so very much.

In most cases, exercise alone, according to a team of scientists at the University of Missouri, isn’t enough to take off those added pounds. The problem, they say, is that all the stuff we’ve heard the last few years about weight control left one key factor out of the equation. When we sit, the researchers found, the enzymes that are responsible for burning fat just shut down.

Well, we actually had a couple of days and nights last week that were cold enough to rationalize a fire in the fireplace. But now highs have jumped back up into the 60s with more and some 70s forecast right through the first week of December. If I can ever dig out of work hole I’ve been in for the last few months, there is some December golf in my future.

That’s one of the great things about living in North Texas. December and January almost always give you some golf days. Which makes up for the days in July and August where you only play if you can get a 6am tee time because a mid-day tee time demands the skills of Survivor Man and the foolhardiness of a Dancing with the Stars contestant.

Back in my Minnesota years, golf ended in mid-to-late September and usually didn’t return until early May. But in that five-month window, there were some beautiful courses to play and some beautiful weather in which to play them, IF you could get a tee time. Demand was high. Courses that looked like this…